“I am a Ukrainian, the native of Kiev” a young woman named Yulia held back her tear as she narrated a pitiful story of the Kiev’s anti-government protest on the camera, “we want to be free from the dictatorship, we want to be free from the politicians who work only for themselves…” The video that recorded Yulia’s desperate plea for help gathered up to 6 million views within the past ten days. However the video that went viral on the internet and struck the hearts of thousands in the past week is receiving a series of backlash for its well-packaged delivery.

While most of the comments with #IAmAUkrainian show supports and sympathies towards the girl and her fellow protestors, some think otherwise. The opposing views voiced that the video was simply a means of staged propaganda.

Indeed, their claims are legitimate to a certain extent. The one-sided video filmed, edited and uploaded by an award-winning American filmmaker, Ben Moses, failed to capture the protest through an objective lens.

She Is Too Perfect

The girl in the video presented herself in a visually attractive manner to a degree where it seems rather too perfect to be one of the victims of the violent government oppression. The signs of her impeccable make up and well organized hair suggest that the video was filtered through meticulous planning from the production side which undermines its overall truth value.

Unaddressed Violence

Although, the footage of the police repeatedly beating protestors to the ground in the video reinforces the presence of police brutality in Kiev, the framed narrative of the video failed to portray the truth of protest in a neutral light. As Yulia exposes the cases of police violence during the protest, the video does not mention the violent behavior from the protestor side against the police, prior to the brutal police crackdown.

“The Ukrainian people are civilized but their government officials are barbarians,” Yulia said in the video. Yet there are multiple evidences online showing protestors’ repeated attacks on the police force using rocks and flaming Molotov cocktails while the police took the offense with no retaliation.

Appearing Trend

“We are seeing more and more of these kinds of protest videos,” Melanie Peck from VAN, a London-based agency which specialized in making and analyzing viral videos, told BBC. Indeed this is not the only time that a protest video has gone viral online. “KONY 2012”—a video by Invisible Children Inc.—received a similar explosion of popularities online years ago. According to Peck, these simple videos give people a sense that they are homemade, which adds authenticity to the information presented. The strong call to action for people to share messages imbedded in the videos creates a sense of involvement among the viewers. It makes people feel like they are making a difference just by sharing the video online. 

 As the country celebrates the ousting of President Yanukovych and the release of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, with or without the help of the propaganda video, the future of Ukraine is still appears burdened with uncertainties.

 

Follow Executive Producer Taiu Kunimoto on Twitter